GREEN FIREBALL SEEN IN CENTRAL ITALY

At about 6:15 p.m. on Monday, January 6, 1997, a
dazzling green fireball crossed Italy's Adriatic coast
north of Foggia, heading west. The glowing object
crossed the Appenine Mountains, passing north of
Campobasso and Isernia, and flew over Rome at
approximately 6:22 p.m.

The fireball lit up the sky. Thousands saw it,
including the air traffic controllers at Rome's
Leonardo da Vinci International Airport.

Captain Giovanni Fior del Mondo, pilot of the
Alitalia flight from Madrid, Spain, was making his final
approach into Da Vinci when he spotted the fireball.
He described it as "a bright green light" which he kept
in view for five seconds.

(Editor's Comment: Belfana got her start as a goddess
in the religion of the lost empire of the Etruscans. By
some strange coincidence, the fireball plunged into the
sea not far from Tarquinia, the ancient capital of the
Etruscans.)

UFOs ROAM AT WILL OVER COSTA RICA

For the past two weeks the Central American country
of Costa Rica has been visited nightly by unidentified
flying objects, usually described as grayish-white or
silvery discs.

The flap began on Sunday night, December 22, 1996,
with a report of UFOs over the cities of San Isidro, in the
Cordillera de Talamanca, and Quepos, on the Pacific
coast.

During succeeding nights, air traffic controllers in the
tower at Jose Santamaria International Airport, located
just outside San Jose, the nation's capital, reported
radar contacts with "objects that cannot be identified."

The UFOs were tracked by radar over the cities of
Ciudad Colon, Santiago de Puriscal, Parrita, Esterillos
and, repeatedly, Quepos.

A radar operator told the newspaper La Nacion that
"some of the objects move at an unimaginable velocity,
others more slowly."

Thursday night, December 26, 1996, Jorge Arturo
Melendez Mora, a pilot with 26 years' experience, was
flying over the cordillera in his twin-engine Piper Aztec
when he spotted "three OVNIs (Spanish acronym for
UFO)" alongside his plane "reflecting the moonlight."
Melendez Mora said the UFOs "were the size of a
Boeing (jetliner), doing things the best of pilots could
not do." He kept them in sight for 40 minutes.

(See La Nacion of San Jose, Costa Rica for January
4, 1997. Muchas gracias to Enrique Mora for
posting the original report in Spanish.)

GLOWING CYLINDER SEEN OVER MEXICO

Wednesday evening, January 1, 1997, twelve farm
workers were stunned to see a very large UFO, which
they described as "a cylinder shape of an orange color"
hovering over a sugar cane field near San Cristobal, in
the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico.

The group watched the glowing UFO for several
minutes before it zipped away to the east, heading
for the Rio Usumacinta, the border with Guatemala.

(Muchas gracias to Sergio Sanchez Flores for this
story.)

(Editor's Note: The Mayan ruins of Yaxchilan are on
the Rio Usumacinta.)

UFOs A NO-SHOW IN ISRAEL

Thousands of Israelis thronged the beaches of
Tel Aviv on Monday, January 5, 1997, awaiting the
promised arrival of three large circular UFOs. But the
saucers failed to show.

The prediction was made the previous week
during the nationwide controversy over the discovery
of a supposed dead alien 5 centimeters long by Mrs.
Zyona Damti at Kibbutz Achihod in northern Israel.

Israeli psychic Helinor Harrar said she had a vision
in which three huge flying saucers approached Tel
Aviv from the sea on January 5. She said, "Israel will
be the site of UFO landings."

Many Israelis took the prediction seriously because
in 1995 Ms. Harrar accurately predicted the upset
election victory of Israeli prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu.

As a result, Israelis began arriving by the hundreds
at the beach Monday morning. A holiday atmosphere
prevailed as spectators wandered the beach and
loudspeakers mounted on trucks played the theme
from "The X-Files."

After sunset, there was some excitement when
someone spotted a bright light in the western sky.
But it turned out to be a jetliner making its final
approach into Tel Aviv's David Ben-Gurion Airport.
By midnight, the UFOs had not arrived, and the
smaller beach crowd dispersed.

Unfazed by the no-show, Ms. Harrar told Israeli
TV Channel One that the UFO occupants had
changed their landing date to February 14. She also
predicted, "Until they (the UFOs) fly over Hebron,
there will be no (peace) agreement."

(Many thanks to Tom Morrison for this story.)

FOUR TRIANGULAR UFOs SEEN IN CALIFORNIA

Saturday evening, January 4, 1997, at 7:25 p.m.,
Daniel J. Kerrigan and a friend were driving in Dan's
pickup truck on Santiago Canyon Road in rural
Orange County, California near the small town of
Silverado Canyon when he spotted a strange light
in the sky.

"Crossing the bridge over Santiago Wash (gully),
I noticed a very strange dim bluish green light with
purple overtones just crossing over Santiago Canyon
Road heading south," Dan said. "At first I thought it
was a very bright meteor traveling above the clouds,
but then I saw that they were actually 'three' lights
set in a triangular pattern (all were of the same color)
at the corners of what appeared to be a triangular
shaped object."

"Just after discerning the shape of the object, we
noticed that there were three separate objects, and
all three were traveling together. They all appeared to
be the same size and shape with the same set of
weird lights. We saw no other lights on the objects
other than those strange alien blue-green-purple lights."

"We turned left onto Silverado Canyon Road to get
out of the traffic and sat in the middle of the road near
a K-railed turnoff, watching the objects rise and gain
speed for a few seconds. Then (we) started to pull over
to get a better look when we noticed another one
coming towards us from straight ahead. It had the
same strange dim blue-green-purple lights, but it was
almost directly over us. It was in the clouds about
300 feet (90 meters) above us, so I did not see the
triangular shape...but the color and intensity of the
light was the same. The object appeared to be
following Silverado Canyon Road."

Leaving work earlier, Dan had had "a really nasty
headache," but, as he watched the strange lights,
his headache suddenly dissipated.

As he pulled over to the side of the road, Dan and
his friend were startled to see "two huge dual-rotor
military choppers" rising from a nearby gulch. He
said U.S. Marine Corps training flights are common
in the Silverado Canyon area, but this pair looked a
bit unusual. One chopper had the standard running
lights while "the other one was totally blacked out, as
far as we could tell. The first three objects continued
to recede toward the south, with the fourth one right
behind them. The two military choppers seemed to
pursue them." (Unsolicited Email)

FOUR TRIANGULAR UFOs SEEN IN CALIFORNIA

Saturday afternoon, January 4, 1996, Michael D. was
at the general store in North Yarmouth, Maine
(population 800) when an elderly man rushed in,
very excited. He told Mike and the storekeeper that
he had "just seen four white disks moving in and out
of clouds" over nearby Bradbury Mountain.

The store clerk said he would call the Brunswick
Naval Air Station in Bath, Maine and try to find out
what was going on.

Five minutes later, as he was driving home on Maine
Highway 202, Mike heard a UFO report on the radio.
The announcer for station WBLM said four white discs
had just been sighted over Reid State Park, across the
bay near Phippsburg, Maine.

Phippsburg is on a small peninsula six miles
(9 kilometers) south of Bath. North Yarmouth is 20
miles (32 kilometers) east of Bath. (Email Interview)

SEARCH ENDS FOR MISSING LEAR JET

On Monday, January 6, 1997, New Hampshire
ended its two-week search for the Lear jet that
vanished over the upper Connecticut River valley
at 10 a.m. on December 24, 1996. James Rivers,
a spokesman for the governor's office, told the AP,
"No one likes to give up hope, but the likelihood of
these men being alive is...not there."

Still missing are Johan Schwartz, 31, of
Westport, Connecticut and Patrick Hayes, 30, of
Clinton, Connecticut.

Schwartz and Hayes left Connecticut the
morning of December 24 to fly to Lebanon, New
Hampshire to pick up a family and take them to
Long Island for Christmas. Rain and fog that
morning hampered visibility, forcing the men to
miss their first approach and to circle the small
municipal airport.

According to Capt. Frank Leith, their Lear jet
disappeared from Lebanon's radar screen at
10 a.m. when they were about 10 miles (16
kilometers) northeast of Lebanon's outer marker,
getting ready to try another landing attempt.

"They were doing the approach properly at the
correct altitude of 4,300 feet," Leith said.

At first searchers believed the plane had
crashed on Moose Mountain, but a search of that
area yielded no trace of the plane. Using three
National Guard helicopters and radar-equipped
search planes of the U.S. Air Force, the search
extended to a radius of 30 miles from the Lebanon
airport, encompassing the hills and valleys around
Rumney, Warren, Lincoln and the Waterville Valley,
plus the slopes of Mount Moosilauke.

There was no sign of either the two missing
men or wreckage from the Lear jet. (See the
Valley News of Lebanon, N.H. for January 8, 1997)

An equally puzzling disappearance occurred in
the upper Midwest last week.

On Tuesday, January 7, 1997, a Minnesota Air
National Guard F-16 took off from Duluth on a
training flight along Lake Superior's north shore.
Midway through the flight, the jet interceptor
disappeared from radar screens at Duluth and
at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

On Thursday, January 9, searchers found
the wrecked F-16 on the eastern edge of
Greenwood Lake, 30 miles (48 kilometers)
north of Two Harbors, Minnesota, in the wild
Superior National Forest. There was no sign of
the pilot anywhere near the crash site. (See
the Duluth, Minn. News-Tribune for January 10,
1997)

(Editor's Note: The pilot's disappearance is
truly odd. A cardinal rule of the U.S. Air Force is,
stay near your downed aircraft.)

UFOs INVADE TALK RADIO

At 9:30 p.m., on Sunday, January 26, 1997, a new
talk show devoted exclusively to UFOs premieres on
radio station WPLR 99-FM ROCK in New Haven,
Connecticut. The live talk show will be hosted by
longtime UFO enthusiasts Kenneth Lloyd and Bob
Tallard. Mr. Lloyd has produced many TV talk shows
on the UFO phenomenon since 1991 and his guests
include Dr. Stanton T. Friedman and Budd Hopkins.

The new talk show,"Cosmic Connection," will
feature live chat and phone calls, in-depth interviews,
the latest UFO news and music from alien and
space-theme movies.

(Editor's Comment: Readers, call your local FM radio
station and ask if they'd like to carry the "Cosmic
Connection." If so, they can reach Kenneth Lloyd at
this email address: alcyone@ct1.nai.net)

UFO WEBSITES FOR YOU TO VISIT

Speaking of Dr. Friedman, the distinguished dean of
UFO researchers and author of TOP SECRET/MAJIC
and CRASH AT CORONA has a newly revamped
Website. Check it out at http://www.ufori.com

Australian UFO Research (AUFOR) has a great site
with some articles on recent UFO encounters in central
Queensland. You can reach AUFOR's site at this
address: http://www.networx.com.au/home/slider

For an update on UFOs in Britain, try Andrea J.
Pickles's new Website at http://members.tripod.com/~andreajp/

David H. Norris has the UFO scene covered in
North Carolina. Dave's Website can be found at
http://www.concordnc.com/dnorris/

For an update on Comet Hale-Bopp, check out
http://www.bulletin-ol.com/UFO

And, of course, not to be missed is our parent
site, UFO INFO, which you can reach at this site--
http://ufoinfo.com/index.html.

You can reach UFO ROUNDUP at that site,
or else read old issues of our newsletter at
http://ufoinfo.com/roundup/index.shtml

That's it for this week. We'll be back next Sunday
with more news from "the paper that covers the
saucers--UFO ROUNDUP." See you then!

UFO ROUNDUP: Copyright 1997 by Masinaigan
Productions, all rights reserved. Readers may post
any items from UFO ROUNDUP on their websites
provided that they credit the newsletter and editor
by name and cite the date of the newsletter in
which the item appeared.